Month: December 2014

Mary’s Verdict: 9.5 /10

Beef Burger: 9.5/10

Chicken Burger: 9.5/10

Veg Burger: 6/10

Sides: 7/10

Why the Mary’s CBD?

She says: I feel a certain amount of totally misplaced ownership over Mary’s. I found them soon after they opened, when I first moved back to my spiritual homeland of Newtown and their burgers have nursed me through many a dire hangover. Giving the CBD store a go was a must. (Note for you before you get to the cross section pictures: Although we engaged in a fairly lengthy conversation about which knife we to carry with us to town and went through potential explanations we would give the police if they happened to search us and find the knife, in the end forgot to bring it and so, in a quick thinking move of utter brilliance we nibbled the burgers to their middles to give you cross section shots. They are far from pretty, but then Mary’s burgers don’t need to be pretty and they don’t care what you think!)

He says: Although no review is present on the site (due mainly to lighting not being conducive to photography and the generally dire hungover state when in it’s presence) it’s safe to say that I’ve demolished a Newtown Mary’s burger more often and with greater vigour than any other burger in Sydney. The service may often be so cold it’s reptilian and the burgers not much to look at when they arrive on the table but fuck me it’s hard to deny these aren’t the most delicious burgers this city has on offer. Upon hearing they’d opened a new takeaway only venture in Sydney’s CBD (with a fried chicken burger!) i’d felt an invisible string yanking me towards since opening night.

What did you order?

Mary’s Burger with trashcan bacon – $10

Chicken burger – $12

Veg Burger – $10

Fries – $3

Smokey Maple Syrup Thickshake – $6

Tell us about the Mary’s burger ?

He says: Everything on this burger is on point. It truly is the perfect union. The meat disintegrates as opposed to melts in your mouth, the cheese wraps itself around it like the perfect partner, the sweet soft bun keeps it all honest and the sauce is one fit for the gods. The patty today perhaps a little overcooked but I will forgive for the army of miraculous burgers that had preceded at Newtown. Final meal on earth contender right here.

She says: This beautiful classic was, as always, top notch. Somehow I only got one piece of tomato which wasn’t ideal as you need that tomato to make this burger what it is. It cuts through the grease just a bit. This burger is heaven and joins a part of a whole suite of Mary’s burgers which have been consumed and enjoyed over the last year – the score given reflects a conglomerate experience.

So then, how did you find the chicken burger?

She says:We were both pretty pumped to try the chicken burger – a new menu item is always something to get excited about. Mary’s fried chicken is awesome, it’s succulent and crunchy to boot putting it on the deliciously sweet burger buns at Mary’s seems like something no-brainer (He actually may have mentioned this as a great potential menu items many burgers ago). This burger, with a sprig of lettuce and just a bit of tomato was the delicious counterpart to its beef sister. In a word – Fantastic.

He says:Pretty much the fried chicken from the Newtown joint inserted into a burger format. Devilishly delicious and rockets straight to the top of any chicken burger within a 1000km radius.

Shall we talk about the Veg burger then?

He says: We have a lot of vego friends who’ve banged on about this being the best veggie burger in town because it doesn’t focus on being healthy (apparently quite the trait in the vegetarian burger scene) instead bucking the trend and dishing up an old school dirty burger. I was open minded, am down with mushrooms and thought upon glancing at it that I was in for a treat. Really didn’t deliver though as for me the volume of mushrooms (two of them and both massive) over powered the other ingredients and it just seemed as if everything on the burger was initially designed for beef and anything else was an afterthought. In saying that I can see why people might wax lyrical about it and admit I’m clearly not the target market for this little guy.

She says: Firstly: I hate mushrooms – I try not to and there are some mushies which I am beginning to like but all in all, I am a firm ‘no’ to mushrooms. As He mentions though we wanted to try this as a tribute to our lippy vego friends. Conceptually I can see how if you liked mushrooms and were sick of healthy burgers, this could be enjoyable – but to me it was like hell.

And what about the sides?

She says: The fries were consistent with the Newtown ones – don’t expect anything fancy, they are your stock standard Maccas style French fries. The thickshake was surprisingly smokey but it had a weird texture, it was almost too thin, as if there was lots of ice but it didn’t have that creamy texture of a good thickshake. The ANZAC cookie sitting on top was pretty great though. And to be honest, I missed the mash and gravy, which you MUST eat if you go to Newtown Mary’s.

He says:The shake was surprisingly a let down as it was more a 3rd rate soft serve in a cup then a $6 drink. Fries were good but PLEASE PUT THE FRIED CHICKEN AND MAS H N’ GRAVY ON THE MENU HERE AS WELL! PLEASE!!!!

Burger Bro? Verdict:6/10

Beef Burger: 5/10

Chicken Burger: 6/10

Sides: 5/10

He says: There was a flurry of interest regarding this New Zealand styled burger house on the interwebs that seemed to erupt out of nowhere. The photos I peeked at had me drooling in anticipation.

She says: He found this one on the net, I didn’t see any of the hype about it before I went but it’s located in hotel chambers where I have snuck off for a cheeky beer after work once or twice in the past, so I was keen to check it out. Turns out they retained the tvs, and have turned them up LOUD.

What did you order?

– The Big Bro – $16

– The Muss – $16

Tell us about the Big Bro?

He says: This joint offers a wide spectrum of burger styles (there’s a beef burger with maple syrup and peanut butter, a pork burger with rashuns chips, and a fish burger with egg, cheese and tartare etc) but we were both famished and decided to go for the two monster burgers on the menu. There was a lot going on here (beef patty, slow cooked pork, egg, cheese, tomato, pineapple, BBQ sauce and aioli) but unfortunately it just seemed like there was ‘throw it all together and hope for the best’ attitude. The sweet pork was too overpowering, didn’t sit well with the beef or the egg, and really needed something salty or acidic to cut through saccharinity. This burger was full of sound and fury signifying nothing I’m afraid.

She says: He has nailed the description of this – what seemed like a good idea at the time (two types of meat, four types of protein and two different sauces all mushed together) was predictably not so great. While the BBQ sauce was a pretty good, the whole thing together was all just too much, even to us, the hungriest people in the world at this point. I even had a touch of a hang over so my fatty fried food threshold was high – alas not high enough.

So then, how did you find The Muss?

He says: Although on the whole more enjoyable than its beef counterpart this was also a bit of a disappointment. The kumara dusted chicken thigh fillet was on point and a nice foil for the bacon, cheese, avocado and aioli and BBQ sauce but again it was all overwhelmed by another ingredient in this case being the caremelized onions. They were either just too sweet or there too many of them but either way you look at it they sunk the ship so to speak.

She says: Again the BBQ sauce was the star of this one. Same criticism as the previous burger in that there was just a bit too much going on. There was pretty much an entire avocado on this bad boy!!

And what about the sides?

She says: We have recently been over ordering big time so we held back on getting extra sides but to be honest I was pretty so-so on the chips. They were just a bit dull – all soft, no crunch. He of course ordered aioli too – but this was not the nice kind, more the pre-made kind that you find most commonly in the kitchen at the RSL which comes in a 20L tub. Nothing special or noteworthy with these unfortunately.

He says: We were informed that all the burgers were served with fries and fearing, even by our standards, that we’d order too much food we avoided the kumara wedges on offer. The fries served with the burgers were pretty standard but definitely in need of more salt

Burger Liquor Lobster Verdict: 7/10

Beef Burger: 7/10

Crab Burger: 7/10

Sides: 7/10

Why Burger Liquor Lobster?

She says: One of my friends from work was talking about how she had gone back to Chur Burger above the London and it was really, really good. Later that same day He had told me about Burger Liquor Lobster and about three days later I put two and two together and worked out my friend had actually gone to Burger Liquor Lobster and given it a glowing review. Long story short this was another one of His finds (although I maintain I heard about it first!!… I just didn’t realise).

He says:Had been to the Chur Burger pop up here a few times and got rather excited by the early press that arose from the new effort. As a concept the lobster focus had me on my knees before you even had to mention burgers

What did you order?

Beef burger – $10

Soft shell crab burger – $15

Lobster bites – $15

Chips – $7

Aioli – ?

Tell us about the Beef Burger?

He say: It was uspiciously hard to tell the difference between this burger and the Chur burger beef version that preceded it in the very same venue. Almost too similar that it’s hard not to feel it’s a little disingenuous. In saying that it was still just as tasty as it’s Chur counterpart.

She says: I quite liked this burger. It featured a good, quite thick patty, and a ‘smoked tomato chutney’, which I didn’t think I would like but which tasted to me to be less of a ’chutney’ (as it didn’t have that chutney spice) and was more sweet and smokey – it was great with the mayo. The bun looks pretty doughy but was good and squishy and the cheese was perfectly melted.

So then, how did you find the Crab Burger?

She says: After the great soft shell crab debacle of 2014, (the offending burger still trails on our Burger Scoreboard) choosing this burger was a hard for Him and I. But it paid off. All the ingredients of this one worked together – the slaw and the Singapore chili sauce (which has that almost curry powder taste of Singapore noodles) and the actually really crispy soft shell crab were great. (It was so crispy and battered that at the end it tasted a bit like a chip sandwich – which is a good thing.)

He says: I’m not sure I’ll ever rant and rave over the virtues of soft shell crab in a burger but I’m so pleased to say this eradicated the prejudice formed after Brooklyn Social. The crunch of the crab smacked a minor home run when coupled with the slaw.

And what about the sides?

She says: Popcorn Lobster? Amazing…. But it really could have been popcorn anything as you could hardly taste the lobster that well… and I have a feeling that if it had been chicken or prawn there would have been a lot more in each serve. The serves as shown in the picture are a little deceiving – the basket is about half filled with iceberg lettuce at the bottom! As for the chips – they are somewhat of a sore spot. We thought that at a whopping $7 the serve would be huge or the chips would be special – neither of these assumptions were correct.

He says:Everything she said. I have nothing more to add other than maybe being a little less forgiving of the notion of serving 7 fucking dollars for a serve of chips. Really dudes?

A Note on Our Verdicts

We try and sample a beef burger, a non-beef burger and a side. We score each out of 10 and then give a final verdict. For our final verdict, we take into account where we think the restaurant should sit on our Leader Board, which is why sometimes the verdict isn't exactly the average of the three, scores.